Vint,
I share your view that a very small fraction of the
billion or so reported Internet users actually want to
provide input.

Danny,
I disagree with that. The questions are "what is an input", "what is
its purpose", "what is the cost" and "what is the collection channel"?

The users do provide inputs. First in using. Then in the way they
use. Then in what they are ready to pay. Also by comparison with
mobile, cable TV, etc.

What is really at stake with ICANN is a lack of technical analysis.
What is important for the internet is not so much the way it works.
But the way the users think it works. The way it works has a software
clearing house (IANA) to support it. ICANN has confused its role: it
should have been the "IANA for the brainware", not to be a domain
name "industry" association.

This is what is really discussed at the WSIS, a forum where the users
can document themselves to themselves. ICANN could have done it. It
still can share in it. But ICANN (and IETF) by their US nexus have
difficulty to switch from "AmerICANN" to multiculturalism. The real
issue is therefore deeper and simpler. We see it with the IDN failure.

The root of the problem is not the DNS root, but RFC 1766, 3066, etc.
which confuse internationalisation (all the computers to speak an
underlaying English) and multiculturalization (the e-communications
empowerment of the persons' communities).

The decision is not at the WSIS, ICANN/GNSO/GA, etc. but it is to
know if Google, Yahoo!, Verisign will understand their business
interest as services providers (with 70% of non-English speakers).
The future board of Unicode will be the real indication. And how the
IANA will transform.
jfc